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DIY: Do It Yourself Post here to share or improve your wrench turning skills! All BMW E46 DIY tips, tales, and projects discussed inside. Learn to work on your car and know the right BMW parts you will need!

going to do the cooling system soon... so this is a good time to remove the clutch fan and toss it. sounds way too simple not to do. Ken, I have a normal "non noob" question (sure you can appreciate that lol) When you installed the fan as a puller behind the radiator... did you utilize the stock fan shroud? and did it have to be modified in anyway(the fan shroud)?

Great job Ken, I will be doing this mod once I do my cooling system overhaul with a stewart pump as well, I wonder what a dyno would show heck I would be happy would even 3 rwhp because every bit counts.

Am I misunderstanding what is being done here, or would this also make working on the car easier? It seems that on auto tranny cars, taking out the mechanical fan is a real pain but the electric one is pretty easy. I'd be inclined to do it for that purpose alone.

Does this apply to M52TUs as well? because I've been reading a lot about the swap and am almost ready to do it, but I'm just held back by this:
Everyone that I've read about had M54s, and everybody still think manuals ALWAYS come with an electric. THIS IS WRONG!
Early manual E46 models have, like mine, a mechanical puller + an electric pusher.
My questions are: when did BMW throw away the dual fan system on manual cars? Is the swap really safe for manual M52TUs? Will a M54 electric fan work?

Does this apply to M52TUs as well? because I've been reading a lot about the swap and am almost ready to do it, but I'm just held back by this:
Everyone that I've read about had M54s, and everybody still think manuals ALWAYS come with an electric. THIS IS WRONG!
Early manual E46 models have, like mine, a mechanical puller + an electric pusher.
My questions are: when did BMW throw away the dual fan system on manual cars? Is the swap really safe for manual M52TUs? Will a M54 electric fan work?

I've done it on my SC'ed M52TUB25

The pusher fan was removed to make room for the intercooler , and the mechanical blew to bits a couple thousand miles ago.

Had the car overheat during rush hour and finaly got an electric one , the one i got though was either improperly wired or was supposed to push air from the engine through the radiator(wtf?)

So i switched the fan's positive/negative and now it works like a charm , can leave the car idling for 20min or drive through 10mph traffic the needle won't move

That's an interesting question ... do you have to remove the pusher fan from in front of the radiator? Replacing the mechanical fan with an electric fan, should be moving the AUC module from mech. shroud to elec. shroud, and plugging the large multiwire plug into the plug that powers the fan. Can both electric fans remain in place and both be functional?

That's an interesting question ... do you have to remove the pusher fan from in front of the radiator? Replacing the mechanical fan with an electric fan, should be moving the AUC module from mech. shroud to elec. shroud, and plugging the large multiwire plug into the plug that powers the fan. Can both electric fans remain in place and both be functional?

I like the idea of one single fan - makes sense to me. Also, I am thinking of upgrading to a better aluminum radiator and running a separate trans cooler.
Then, I get the best of all worlds, while providing more protection to the auto trans. In Vegas, anything to keep the motor cool is a plus.

I like the idea of one single fan - makes sense to me. Also, I am thinking of upgrading to a better aluminum radiator and running a separate trans cooler.
Then, I get the best of all worlds, while providing more protection to the auto trans. In Vegas, anything to keep the motor cool is a plus.

So, I'm sure I'm over-thinking this, but found it interesting. Using the diagram below which shows the auto transmission cooling setup... Note that the coolant which is routed to the auto transmission heat exchanger includes the the heated coolant from the engine along with the coolant exiting the heater. That means the transmission fluid has to be hotter than the mixture coming from the engine in order to cool the transmission. So, with hot coolant cooling the transmission fluid, I wonder why BMW continued to use a fan/clutch on automatics?